Enfour Tried To Shame Pirates By Tweeting In Their Name Without Their Knowledge

  • bzamayo.com/enfour-embarrasses-pirates-via-twitter
Ars Technica:

If you search Twitter for the hashtag #softwarepirateconfession you’ll find a stream of tweets stating, “How about we all stop using pirated iOS apps? I promise to stop. I really will. #softwarepirateconfession.” There are many dozens of these tweets in the past day alone, all identical. So what’s happening? It turns out that Enfour, the maker of a variety of dictionary apps, is auto-posting tweets to users’ accounts to shame them for being pirates. But the auto-tweeting seems to be affecting a huge portion of its paid user base, not just those who actually stole the apps.

Two problems here:

  1. The method used to embarrass the pirates is ethically debatable.
  2. The method used was broken, and fired for people who weren’t pirates and actually bought the app, annoying their genuine user base.

So, all things considered, I’d say their plan was a success.